Liberals split over plan for cyber-bully pulpit

Matthew Knott, Jonathan Swan

Since the Coalition took power in September, Malcolm Turnbull has valiantly played the happy Communications Minister - uninterested in higher office, perfectly content plugging copper into Labor's national broadband network and axing redundant legislation. On Wednesday, the Abbott government will hold its first ''repeal day'', with Turnbull overseeing about half of the 8000 repeals.

But there's a fly in Turnbull's deregulation soup. If you want to make the loquacious free-marketer go quiet, ask him about his understudy Paul Fletcher's plan to introduce a new ''children's e-safety commissioner'' with the power to force social media sites to take down content deemed harmful to children.

Celebrated by anti-bullying groups, the policy is strongly opposed by social media companies, telecommunications firms and newly appointed Human Rights Commissioner Tim Wilson.

The idea emerged from the Coalition's online safety working group, set up by Tony Abbott in opposition, which travelled around the country to talk to parents, students and teachers about cyber bullying.

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Victorian Nationals senator Bridget McKenzie, a member of the group, says she was disturbed to learn about a Bendigo Facebook page, ''Benders root rater'', which judged the sexual performance of teenagers as young as 13.

''The men involved in that site eventually have been sentenced, or received suspended sentences, but that was a year after the page went viral.''

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Fletcher, chairman of the working group and now parliamentary secretary for communications, says: ''Twenty or 30 years ago, if you were bullied at school, you could at least go home and feel safe … That's not the case any more. All the major sites have complaint schemes but the feedback we got was that, when people report problems, the experience is not always what they want it to be.''

Fletcher's solution is to appoint an official with the power to issue ''rapid removal'' orders if large social media companies refuse, or are too slow, to remove material deemed harmful to someone under 18. The government is also considering creating a new Commonwealth cyber-bullying offence.

Asked about the e-safety commissioner proposal this week, and how it gels with his belief in cutting red tape, Turnbull said: ''The Coalition committed $10 million towards an online safety for children policy, which was released prior to the election. The measures do involve a targeted and limited increase in regulation. We aim to make it as light touch as possible and this is an important objective of the consultation process - to obtain feedback from industry.''

But Liberal MP Alex Hawke, deputy chairman of the last Parliament's cyber safety committee and a member of the online safety working group, is not convinced his government is doing the right thing.

''We heard a lot of evidence in the last Parliament,'' he says. ''Industry groups, education groups, parents groups and academics were all saying that [an online ombudsman] might sound nice in theory but, in practice, it's too slow, too reactive and ultimately not going to work.''

The notion of another government-appointed regulator rankles many in the Liberal Party. Wilson, appointed to the Human Rights Commission to champion free speech, says: ''I don't doubt the government's genuine intention in tackling cyber bullying but I am concerned about the risks it poses to free speech. But my principal concern is, will it be effective?''

Perhaps the most surprising critic of the policy is Megan Mitchell, Australia's National Children's Commissioner.

While applauding the government for making cyber bullying a priority, Mitchell says: ''On the evidence provided, it's not clear there is a case for this sort of fundamental change.''

Mitchell is concerned that only the biggest social media sites - such as Facebook and Twitter - would be covered by the scheme, with smaller sites joining voluntarily. That approach, she says, ''doesn't make a lot of sense''.

''Our research and experience show that education and awareness are the best things you can do to enhance the online safety of children,'' she says.

David Holmes, chief executive of the Digital Policy Group, which represents Facebook, Twitter and Google, says the Coalition's policy is a solution in search of a problem. The government should work on beefing up a co-operative complaints handling arrangement it signed with Facebook, Google, Yahoo!7 and Microsoft in 2012, he says.

A government removal scheme would be cumbersome - taking, at best, five days and, at worst, months - and encourage children to move on to riskier, unregulated platforms such as Kik and Snapchat, he says. Facebook is concerned the proposed ''material that is harmful to a child'' test is too subjective and risks catching innocuous content as well as genuine cyber bullying.

But those on the front line are not so sanguine about the social media companies' policies. After the death of television host Charlotte Dawson, beyondblue CEO Kate Carnell criticised Twitter for not signing up to the government's cyber complaints scheme.

The National Centre Against Bullying and the National Children's and Youth Law Centre back a children's e-safety commissioner. So does Chloe's Law, an anti-bullying lobby group formed by the family of Chloe Fergusson, who killed herself last year, aged 15, after being bullied on and offline.